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Egypt club asks chief not to run for president

Abdel-Nasser Sayed Wednesday, April 16, 2014

CAIRO – The board of directors of Al-Zamalek Club, one of Egypt's biggest football clubs, has called on its chairman Mortada Mansour to drop his bid to run in Egypt's presidential elections, which are scheduled for May 26-27.

In a Wednesday statement, the board called on Mansour not to run for president and only focus on solving the club's problems.

Mansour, a lawyer by profession, said earlier that he would run for president to contest the country's top post with former army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and leftist politician and former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi.

He was recently elected to be the board chairman of Al-Zamalek, a sporting sensation in this country with a huge numbers of fans and supporters across Egypt.

"Al-Zamalek Club is in a bad need for Mansour's efforts," the club's board said in its statement.

Mansour, however, said he will announce his final decision on Saturday.

"This is not easy as some people think," Mansour told reporters, going on to say that he has a program for "Egypt's renaissance".

Presidential hopefuls can submit their election applications to the presidential elections commission until Sunday.

Presidential hopefuls need to collect written endorsements from 25,000 eligible voters to be able to run for president, according to the newly-approved constitution.

Mansour is still in the process of collecting the endorsements.

Only al-Sisi has managed to collect the required number of endorsements so far. He submitted his application to the election commission on Monday.